Ratatouille First Look

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May 17, 2007 - It's not often that you hear about rats that want to become world renowned chefs. In fact, most would rather go into the kitchen for food, cheese or other scraps instead of trying to cook complex dishes. That's not the case with Remy, a young French rat looking to fulfill his dreams of becoming famous with his own restaurant in Paris. The story of Remy and his culinary aspirations are the latest subject of Pixar's upcoming animated film, Ratatouille, and thanks to THQ and Heavy Iron Studios, gamers will be able to lead the rodent to his dreams of becoming a chef.

We managed to check out the game of the movie, which will follow the events of the film as well as provide a little additional backstory on the rodent and his friends. While the game is a family based title, Heavy Iron attempted to make sure that the gameplay was easy enough for little kids but deep and challenging enough for more experienced gamers. As a result, the designers put in a number of tips to tell players about Remy's various abilities, as well as a glowing outlines around items that can be interacted with. For players that manage to lose their way in the game's various environments, players can use Remy's scent vision to track down their primary objectives.

Impressively, the five environments (four of which are taken from the movie itself) are extremely large. If a player sees an area in the world, it's more than likely that they can travel there via jumps or other items, like a cocktail umbrella. The umbrella is one of those in-game items that uses the Sixaxis to maneuver around, leisurely floating wherever you direct Remy. Players will also use the Sixaxis to maintain their balance as they jump on sprinkler heads and other unsteady hops. While it doesn't shy away from it's action platforming roots, the game places a heavy premium upon exploration.

While there are a certain number of tasks that you'll need to do in each stage, such as acquiring a set number of charms or collecting various items, players will be able to unlock up to thirty separate mini-games that they can play with up to four players. One of these was an insect crushing game where Remy and three other players could roll around on a pie crust and see which one was able to squash thirty bugs in a set time limit. Along with unlocking mini-games, players can also collect game tokens that will unlock concept art from both the game and the movie, as well as behind the scenes movies with the developers of the title.

Using the voice actors of the movie for the title and packing a lot of mini-games, Ratatouille should be released day and date with the film as hit hits screens. We'll have more on Ratatouille soon.